Hey folks, Harry here... I believe we're on the cusp of the turn of the tide. This day brought on some news that Moriarty is about to dish some of that unfortunately gives portents of doom for the X-Men franchise, brought on by a lack of consideration for the possible long term development of serial characters by rushing deaths, forcing storylines into a situation where you lose the ability to do lucrative spin-offs. It's sad. But with BLADE 3, ELEKTRA and the upcoming FANTASTIC FOUR film - the MARVEL logo is losing some of its well-deserved awe. X2 and SPIDER-MAN 2 (and I feel HULK) have been their best work, with SPIDER-MAN 2 being the crown jewel of MARVEL's cinematic acheivements. Now, I don't think MARVEL's run is doomed to everlasting mediocrity... I believe they're going to learn some harsh lessons here soon.

Warners and DC are making some steps that I think might help save the future of MARVEL films... simply by taking a page from MARVEL's own playbook. Christopher Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS is going to be a tremendous success... not just monetarily, but in terms of cinema. With each new look of the film via trailers, posters and now reviews... Like this one from Sandy Collora (Director of fan film fave BATMAN: DEAD END) Click Here and then Newsweek's Preview fires us up even more. The poster campaign has been mythic in style. Very cool. Then there's my fave TV spot for BATMAN BEGINS, which isn't about action and explosions, but the relationship between a boy and his butler - Click Here! And the word at this point has Nolan knocking this one way way way out of the park. Apparently DC was so impressed, they decided it was time to break out their own logo... and we'll see it tagged on this one.

Then Warners & DC raided Bryan Singer. For one, Bryan probably realized that by doing Superman, he wouldn't be stuck on the insane deadlines and budget short-comings and ignorant executive story notes like he had at Fox... The new crew at Warner Brothers headed by Robinov is giving directors like Nolan, Singer and soon Whedon - the sort of creative room and studio support that Amy Pascal and the Sony crew have given Sam Raimi on SPIDER-MAN. They understand that these are expensive stories to tell - and rushing them have always amounted to sub-par work that audiences tune out to.

Recently - I managed to get an eye on some of what Singer is planning with SUPERMAN RETURNS and tonally it is very much following Richard Donner's film, save in how it concerns Luthor, which was painfully camp. His story has the emotional anchor between Lois & Clark of the ol failure to communicate. Clark goes galavanting off into the heavens on a multi-year (Earth Time) search, while time passes on Earth. If you remember Margot's Lois bitched at Supes for being gone when her car ran out of gas, imagine what she'd do if he disappeared for a month or two... or 3 years or more? The world has gotten used to not having the Man of Steel, they've grown to resent the dependance they felt on him to "save us". It's really dealing with what SUPERMAN would mean to the world, and what it would mean if he simply left us one day to fend for ourselves. I mean - think about it. Would 9/11 happen in a Superman reality? And if he left and 9/11 did happen, wouldn't we resent him for it happening?

The action is huge. I don't want to spoil one of the huge action beats that's in this... but it comes when Lex, having stolen something Kryptonian... an object we're all familiar with, does something twisted and scientific to it, then uses it completely without thinking of the possible side effects which are... world altering in scale... something that only a Superman could lessen the impact of. Then on the small scale side of the film... They're thinking of new ways to show Superman's invulnerable nature. Again, without spoiling it... they're thinking about bullets and the most fragile parts of the human anatomy to give you a sense of just what invulnerable means. It really does amount to a "Holy Shit" moment. My spy, "Sepo" says, "It's all pretty fucking cool. The fucking action is awesome!" Chatting with this spy has me dying to see the film more so than even The BlueTights Site Videos... however, this latest one... Well, it's just beautiful.

Click Here To See Something Super!

I have to say I'm delighted that DC and their properties seem to finally be emerging from the dark days of DiBonaventura... but with Marvel's Fox properties under irresponsible mishandlings of Rothman... I sure didn't need to see Fox dropping the ball. But hey, I guess that's all part of the Yin Yang of the Superhero Marvel/DC ages of dominance.